


burn scars from your heat death

by kaumari



Series: time is the change from stardust to bones [11]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M, Metaphors, for scars, it's another projection fix!!, kinda resolved mostly left alone, more space metaphors wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaumari/pseuds/kaumari
Summary: in which you were always destined to scorch everything you touched, and i was always destined to be your kindling.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu
Series: time is the change from stardust to bones [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889728
Kudos: 7





	burn scars from your heat death

**Author's Note:**

> short drabble vent sigh. yeah it's still sad hours i guess.

Atsumu stares at him. Shinsuke stares back.  _ Go on _ , he says with his eyes, because his mouth refuses to move.  _ Tell me. Tell me how useless you think you are. _ They’re standing in Atsumu’s metaphorical ashes, the remnants of something he can no longer remember clearly enough to describe. He was never allowed to look directly at it, too bright and blinding to truly make sense of. Now it’s this, an amalgamation of pride and shame.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not. And I’m not asking you to be.” Atsumu tears his eyes away from Shinsuke’s face, looks at the ground instead. He never could look anyone he loved in the eyes. He was too afraid to disappoint them. He was too afraid to disappoint  _ him _ , and look where it’s brought them.

Sometimes, Shinsuke thinks he was playing god when he called Atsumu a star. As if by merely thinking it into existence, he’d created something that would never be able to handle its own weight. He’d given it an expiration date, a timeline, a promise that one day he would collapse, and even then he would still be beautiful.

Well. He’s collapsing now. Is he still beautiful?

Of course he is. He always has been, even when his halo has been swallowed by the depths of his own destruction. Even in this unraveling, he is illuminated.

“No, I am,” Atsumu snaps, and he’s reminded that he’s witnessing his own creation fall apart. How narcissistic of him. “You didn’t do anythin’ to deserve it. It’s not you I’m mad at.”  _ No, but it’s me wearing the burns of your outburst. _ Shinsuke’s not mad about it. He knows that is what he was risking. Red cheeks, hands, heart, the skin peels back to reveal the muscle, pulls back to reveal the bone. Yet he still reaches out for another touch, as if the same way Atsumu is destined to fold is the way Shinsuke feels the overpowering need to embrace him.

He is, after all, Shinsuke’s own creation.

“That doesn’t answer anything.”

“I know!” Here, he thinks they’ll have another fallout, an explosion of pressure too immense to be contained anymore. But it settles, deflates as Atsumu falls to the floor cross-legged and his head held in his hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong.” Here, Shinsuke can’t help him. He knows he’s not god, even if he toyed with the idea, and he can’t read minds. He can deduce the cause, but only he is can find the signs.

There is no beginning or end in this cloudy aftermath. It sparkles around them, all the beautiful colors of the rainbow a mockery of their ruin. All stars collapse, one way or another. But they don’t have to become aimless clouds.

“It’s alright that you don’t know, but you’ll have to find out,” he chides softly, joining Atsumu on the floor. “You can’t just blow up at anyone.” Atsumu turns to let his eye peek out of his hands.

“Why don’t you ever include yerself in that? It’s not like I wanna be exploding in front of you all the time.” A wonderful question, almost as wonderful as watching the cloud coalesce around them, pulled back together by its own gravity. Shinsuke smiles, and it isn’t painful at the edges—it never will be.

“Don’t worry so much about me, Tsumu.” He can handle the scars—skin reveals muscle reveals bone. It doesn’t hurt as much, not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> @kaumaridevi


End file.
